PLANTING SEEDS

From one to ten, a family of brown bunnies digs, plants, waters, weeds, tends, harvests and eats the carrots in their garden. Wallace’s anthropomorphized collaged-paper bunnies are positioned, for the most part, against a bright blue sky in simple compositions, making it easy to count them as one by one they join the spreads. She provides other objects to count, adding interest for repeat readings: The clouds (on sunny days), garden tools, birds and insects, etc., all match the number of the bunnies in any spread. The verse text is a series of declarative sentences with a predictable pattern, all beginning by indicating the number of brown bunnies engaged in the activity at hand. Although the numerals do not appear within the primary narrative, a concluding page presents them, each next to the appropriate number of carrots. Terrific. (Board book. 1-3)